Government ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli sparked a debate on the status of cemevis, regarded as places of worship for Türkiye’s Alevi community.
The veteran politician, who recently donated a plot of land for the construction of Türkiye’s biggest cemevi, said on Tuesday that the state should take steps to make this reality.
“We need to exhibit will for registration of cemevis as places of worship. We have to understand our brothers and sisters with the Alevi Islamic faith on this matter. As much as we stand for mosques, we must stand for cemevis,” said Bahçeli, whose party fell out with the community in the past.
In an address to his party’s members at MHP’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, Bahçeli emphasized that ensuring the Turkish nation reaches peace and prosperity, after decades of being targeted by dark scenarios aiming to incite ethnic and sectarian strife, is a noble and fundamental duty for all.
He warned of internal and external enemies fueling a false and artificial divide between Kurds and Turks. He said the same forces are responsible for escalating the believer-nonbeliever and secular-anti-secular dichotomies. He added that the most reckless campaign is the one pushed by anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic elements trying to provoke and solidify an Alevi-Sunni divide through political and ideological motives.
The nationalist leader, who hails from a prominent family in southern Türkiye, bought a plot in central Nevşehir Province’s Hacıbektaş district 15 years ago. After a MHP rally in Mersin in 2022, which was attended by representatives of an Alevi federation, Bahçeli decided to donate the land to the federation. Türkiye’s biggest cemevi complex, built by the federation, was inaugurated on the land donated by Bahçeli over the weekend.
Hacıbektaş is a significant center for Alevis, as it houses the tomb of the eponymous 13th-century mystic, a revered figure within the community whose teachings are widely respected.
The MHP and Alevis have a bitter history, with some members of the community blaming hardline nationalists for a notorious massacre targeting Alevi neighborhoods in 1978. The community’s traditional alignment with MHP’s main rival, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), deepened the gap, although the nationalist party has been more embracing toward Alevis, particularly for their Turkmen roots. Bahçeli, a Turkmen himself, has been more vocal in his embrace of Alevis in recent years. His Alevi rhetoric took another turn when he recently suggested that Türkiye may have a Kurdish and an Alevi vice-president in the future, as he emphasized national unity of the country.
Criticizing those who oppose the right to belief, expression and human freedom, Bahçeli said, “Whoever objects, disapproves, reacts or sneers at these freedoms – whatever one dares or stoops to such behavior-is either devoid of reason and conscience, or a provocateur agent.”
“Whenever needed, and on every appropriate platform, we have shared our sincere and transparent views regarding our Alevi Muslim brothers and sisters. I must say this plainly: At the core, are we not all Muslims? Do we not share the same God, the same prophet, the same holy book, the same qibla, the same creed? Are we not all honorable and proud members of the Turkish nation? Have not certain groups used artificial ethnic and sectarian differences as weapons to build walls and create insurmountable barriers between us? Are we not tired of looking at each other with suspicion?” he said.
“With clear conscience and sincere intent, I say: We are both Alevi and Sunni, but above all, we are members of the Muslim Turkish nation. These thoughts do not prevent us from voicing the past and present needs and expectations of our Alevi Muslim brothers and sisters. My only aim is to express reflections and evaluations rooted in national and spiritual unity that we all must consider. Our Alevi Muslim brothers are our kin; they are one with us. Their concerns are our concerns, their demands are our demands.”
Bahçeli said that those who attempt to sever Alevism from its authentic religious and cultural context and turn it into a political weapon are gravely mistaken. “If the mosque is ours, then the cemevi is also ours. The cem is ours, the semah is ours and the obligations of faith and Islam are ours as well,” he said, referring to rituals of the Alevi faith.
“Those who rely on slander and accusations and those who still fail to understand the foreign-backed provocations behind incidents from Maraş to Çorum – those who wait eagerly to generate hostility from history, are completely outside our scope of interest and concern,” he said. He was referring to attacks on Alevi citizens during the 1970s, which were charged with political turmoil and blamed on nationalists.
“With the donation of a personal property of mine to the Horasan Saints Federation of Associations, this 6,000-square-meter complex was built and opened as the largest cemevi project in our country and the world,” he said. “I pray that it becomes a symbol of our national unity and solidarity,” Bahçeli concluded.
